The car of missing painter and docker Alfred Nelson is pulled from the Yarra River in 1972. Source: HWT Image Library

POLICE have launched a new probe into the 1971 disappearance of Melbourne waterfront war victim Alfred "The Ferret" Nelson.

Detectives intend questioning mafia hitman James Bazley about his possible role in the unsolved case.

They have already quizzed an associate of painter and docker Billy "The Texan'' Longley about whether Longley was involved in the suspected murder of Nelson.

Bazley and Longley were on one side in the bloody waterfront war and Nelson was on the other.

Longley yesterday denied playing any part in Nelson's disappearance and Bazley's wife Lillian yesterday said her husband was innocent.

Victoria Police cold case squad head Ron Iddles yesterday confirmed his unit was preparing a brief of evidence for the coroner on the Nelson case. Nelson, 47, went missing in 1971 during a battle between warring factions of the notorious painters and dockers union.

His body has never been found.

Longley, 87, was heavily involved in the 1970s waterfront wars that saw dozens murdered during a battle for control of the union.

He was released from jail in 1988, after serving 13 years for ordering the murder of union secretary Pat Shannon. Shannon, 45, was shot dead in the Druid's Hotel (now the Water Rat) in South Melbourne in 1973.

Alfred Desmond "The Ferret" Nelson, 47, missing painter and docker.

Bazley, 86, was released from jail in 2001 after serving 21 years for various crimes, including murdering drug couriers Douglas and Isabel Wilson in 1979 and conspiring to murder Griffith anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay in 1977.

Australian Calabrian mafia boss Robert Trimbole recruited Bazley to kill Mr Mackay and the Wilsons.

Asked if the cold case squad would be questioning Bazley during its fresh look at the disappearance of Nelson, Det-Sen-Sgt Iddles said "Yes, more than likely.''

He said there had never been an inquest into Nelson's death, so the main purpose of the new probe was to prepare a brief of evidence so the coroner could finally hold one.

"But I can't rule out charges being laid even after all this time because in the process of talking to people about it - and because of new publicity about the case - someone might tell us exactly what happened and we would go from there,'' Sen-Sgt Iddles said.

"We have already spoken to someone associated with Billy Longley, someone who is a close associate.

"Billy Longley is into his 80s now, he's very sick and that is why we didn't approach him directly.

"He was quite happy to talk about some of the issues around the painters and dockers war, but the interview didn't progress the Nelson case any further.''

Mrs Pat Shannon is conforted by friends with the Rev Fr Michael Daly after the funeral of her husband Pat Shannon in October 1973. Mr Shannon was the State secretary of the Ship Painters' and Dockers' Union.

Sen-Sgt Iddles said he had a lot to do with painters and dockers in the early days of his career in the force.

"I was stationed in Collingwood from 1973 to 1980 and there were a lot of painters and dockers hotels we were called to,'' he said.

"So I got around and met the main union identities.

"From what I know of the Nelson case, four men came to his house and abducted him and took him away from the house and he has never been seen since.

"I think his disappearance related to an ongoing dispute within the painters and dockers.

``There were two main factions. Nelson was in one and maybe the other faction was involved in his disappearance.''

Nelson was a close associate of Longley's rival, union secretary Pat Shannon, and was the painters and dockers welfare officer up until he went missing.

He disappeared from his home in Langridge St, Collingwood on December 7, 1971, three days before a union election in which Longley was standing for the presidency of the painters and dockers, with Bazley on his ticket as vigilance officer - a fancy union name for an enforcer.

Robert Trimbole, a Griffith drug dealer, in 1984.

A police diver found a car stuck in mud at the bottom of the river Yarra at 21 South Wharf, Melbourne, just after noon on January 24, 1972. He was unable to open any of the doors or see inside it.

He was able to remove the registration plates and senior police were called to the scene when a rego check revealed the submerged car was Nelson's almost new, white, automatic, two-door Valiant Charger.

A crane was brought from South Melbourne to hoist the car from the river bed.

The media had arrived in droves by this stage and there was high excitment as police had earlier said they believed the body of the missing Nelson might be in the car boot.

When the car was lowered to land there was a key sticking out of the boot lock, but police still needed to use a crowbar to open it.

When the boot was opened police found only some old hessian bags and a baby's car chair - which Nelson used to sit his silky-haired terrier in while driving.

Police told reporters at the scene the car was in drive when it surfaced, suggesting the gear selector had been put in drive and then the car steered towards the wharf edge.

Homicide squad chief Kevin Carton said it was possible, but not probable, that Nelson's body had floated out through the open front windows of the car.

Billy Longley outside HM Prison Pentridge.

Police divers spent several days searching the Yarra, but failed to find any trace of Nelson's body.

A bomb blasted open the front door of Longley's home in Derham St, Port Melbourne, at 10.55pm the day after Nelson's car was found, but he wasn't home at the time. The force of the blast lifted the patio roof and blew holes in a brick wall.

Police who wanted to search the back of Longley's fortress-like home after the bombing were prevented from doing so for several hours due to the presence of Longley's vicious bull mastiff, but they did find shotgun blast marks on Longley's side gate, which was topped with razor blades.

Four days after Shannon supporter Nelson disappeared, Longley supporter Desmond ``Cossie'' Costello, 39, was shot in the face and killed - Costello was allegedly one of the men who abducted Nelson.

Costello's body was found lying face down in a ditch at the eastern end of Alexandra Parade, Collingwood, where the Eastern Freeway was being constructed.

The tit-for-tat killings in the painters and dockers war continued for years - a war that the Costigan Royal Commission later said had led to at least 40 people being murdered, cars and buildings being bombed and scores of unionists being ambushed, shot and wounded and bashed.

It was Longley who sparked the Costigan Royal Commission after he publicly revealed details about the waterfront war killings and rorts the union was involved in.

He claimed in an article published in The Bulletin magazine in 1980 that the union was corrupt and he made detailed allegations about organised crime on the waterfront.

James Frederick Bazley in 2001, released from Loddon prison after serving 15 years for murder and armed robbery.

Longley also claimed painter and docker heavy Joey Turner was involved in the death of Nelson and that they had argued over the proceeds of an armed robbery on an MSS security van.

"Because the heat was on, Joey Turner had given his share of the money to Nelson, who was acting as bagman,'' Longley told the Bulletin.

"It amounted to about $60,000.

"I know that a row broke out between Nelson and Turner because The Ferret pocketed some of the money.''

Longley's biography, published in 2005, touches on the death of Nelson.

When asked by his biographer, Rochelle Jackson, about rumours he was involved in Nelson's disappearance, Longley smiled and said: ``I read in the newspaper that he'd disappeared and hadn't been heard of. He was a good little bloke. We were quite good friends. I couldn't tell you what happened to him because I don't know.''

The Longley book claims a detective working on the docks was standing on a concrete ramp when a painter and docker walked past and shouted, ``Watch it, you're standing on The Ferret''.

The ramp was being built at the time Nelson disappeared in late 1971.

Another theory in 1971 was that Nelson's body was hidden in the bilge tank of the Somali-registered freighter

Hangchow, which was docked in Melbourne at the time he disappeared.

The ship sailed from Melbourne's South Wharf four hours after Nelson was last seen.

Acting on a tip-off, Victoria Police arranged for Hong Kong police to search the ship when it arrived in Hong Kong from Shanghai seven months after Nelson was reported missing.

No trace of Nelson was found.

There have also been persistent underworld rumours that Nelson was incinerated in a huge coal-burning furnace just 60 metres from the painters and dockers office in Lorimer St, South Melbourne.

Shannon told Dearn Nelson was well liked and that it was possible his disappearance had prompted some of his friends to seek revenge, but he claimed the reprisals against members of the Longley camp, including Longley's right-hand man, Bazley, being shot and wounded, were not sanctioned by the union.

"It would be natural for his friends to be annoyed, but if this is an explanation for the shootings, bashings, bombings and burnings, then I don't know about it,'' Shannon said.

"The union doesn't know either - it isn't a union affair.

"Of course we are tough.This is hard and dirty work we do.

"We aren't flower arrangers or window dressers.

"The candidates from both sides have many supporters who are hard guys.

"Among them could be some who could take it on themselves to get tough with supporters of the opposing group.''

Shannon was shot dead the next year.

Sun newspaper reporter Tom Prior interviewed Nelson's son Geoff two days after Shannon was murdered.

"Pat Shannon was bowled over the same way my Dad was bowled over, by the same people and for the same reason,'' Geoff Nelson told Prior.

"Pat was so busy running around trying to do the right thing he couldn't spare the time for precautions.

"Like my Dad, he paid the penalty.

"Dad was an easygoing guy. He'd talk to anyone, heck, he was the welfare officer, he arranged bail.

"So a couple of smarties grabbed him at home and that was that.

"He probably ended in the deep water at Victoria Dock, but wherever it was doesn't matter much really. He's dead all right and I've known it all along.

"Why did they bowl him over instead of someone else? That's easy, because he was easy.

"They wanted to let the rest of the painters and dockers know they meant business so they murdered someone.

"They weren't game to go for one of the hard guys - so they picked on my Dad.

"Dad might have been a goer in his youth, but when they picked him up he was just a union man trying to do the right thing by his fellow union members.

"Pat Shannon was all for respectability and for meeting all sorts of people on all levels.

"He was going to make the painters and dockers legitimate if it killed him - and it probably did.''

Longley yesterday told the Herald Sun he had nothing to do with the disappearance of Nelson, but could understand why police wanted to talk to him about the case.

"I knocked about in those times,'' he said.

"There were a lot of knockabouts in those times and there were a lot of deaths in those times.

"Melbourne is the homicide capital of Australia, there's no doubt about that. There's gang war after gang war.

"There were 28 deaths in the recent one and there was 40 to 60 in the one I was involved in.

"So as far as I am concerned it was a much more violent affair, the dock war, much more violent than the recent one.''

Longley said he believed Nelson had once tried to lure him into a situation where Longley's rival, Jack Twist, could shoot him so he had gone armed and prepared.

Longley believes Twist had a gun in each pocket as he walked up behind Longley on the day Nelson asked Longley to meet him in the mess room at Webb Dock in 1971.

"I got a message that the Ferret wanted to see me and I went to Webb Dock. I had a pistol with me, of course,'' Longley said yesterday.

"You had to in those times. It was part of the way you lived, carrying a pistol, because there was that many shoot-outs.

"It just behoved you to be armed.

"I walked into the mess room through swinging doors and the Ferret was sitting down towards the end of a a long table. I sat down opposite him and as I sat down I pulled out my pistol. I had it in my hand, more or less pointing his way.

"We were chatting away there and I heard the doors go.

"Those swing doors with the rubber running down the middle, they make a peculiar sound, a sound I would pick up on anyway because I was streetwise and I was on the alert for those sort of things as that's what keeps you alive.

"I turned around and it was Jack Twist and he had both hands in his pockets and he was pussyfooting, trying not to make a noise, but he had already made the noise with the door.

"The Ferret grew alarmed. He knew things were going to blow up very, very quickly.

"They would have blown up very quickly on my part because you live and die by the dictum get in first or if you don't get in first they will and that's the end of everything.

"Here I am, 87, and it has kept me alive all my life.

"The Ferret said `Bill, Bill, Bill, hang on, hang on' and he flew out of the seat and he ran up to Jack Twist and he put both arms around him, they were face to face.

"He said `come with me Jack, come outside I want to speak to you' and that's what happened.''

Longley said he believed Nelson had lured him to Webb Dock so Twist could attempt to kill him and it was only the presence of his gun that saved him.

"There is a saying for it, it's called the apple cucumber. It means put you in lumber,'' Longley said yesterday.

"Watch out for the apple cucumber means watch out, for instance, there might be a knock at your door one night and you will say `who's there' and you will hear somebody yell `it's Reg, your brother' but somebody could have a gun in his back and want me to open the door.

"That's how careful you had to be.

"I remember I would visit a mate of mine, Steve Nitties, and I would knock on the door and yell out `Bill here' and his wife would let me in and just around the corner, pointing a gun at your head, was Steve.

"That's the way you had to be. If you weren't that alert, bang, that's seven years bad luck. And I mean seven years bad luck, permanent bad luck.

"That might give you an idea of the way things were in those times.''

Longley said he had no idea whether his friend Desmond ``Cossie'' Costello had anything to do with the disappearance of Nelson..

"I don't know. You don't broadcast those things if you do them,'' Longley said.

"If he had anything to do with the disappearance of the Ferret he didn't tell me.''

Costello was shot dead four days after Nelson disappeared.

"I think he was killed because he was a friend of mine,'' Longley said yesterday.

Sen-Sgt Iddles is hoping the cold case squad's continuing probe into the Nelson case - and publicity in the Herald Sun about it - will bring in new information that could solve the 41-year-old mystery.

"I would appeal to anyone who does know anything about the disappearance of Nelson, even after all this time, to come forward,'' he said.

"We will follow up on all leads.''

Sen-Sgt Iddles urged people with information on the Nelson case to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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